Claude Monet (1840-1926) is one of the world’s best known painters, and is widely regarded as the founding father of French Impressionism, an artistic movement that changed the way we think about painting forever. Monet was dedicated to capturing the effects of light and atmospheric conditions, and less concerned with realistic depictions of a scene.
Perhaps surprisingly, one of his favourite places to work was the often murky central London at the turn of last century. He produced a series of paintings depicting views of the Thames during visits to the capital between 1899 and 1901, which were exhibited to critical acclaim in Paris in 1904.
There were further plans to exhibit the series, which includes scenes of Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, in London the following year, but they never materialised. Now, the series will finally make their London debut at the Courtauld Museum in September.
Monet curated the exhibition himself over 120 years ago, so this is a really exciting opportunity to see what he considered to be the best examples of his work, very close to the original place where they were created.
Art News reports on Monet’s fascination with London, which appears to have been enhanced rather than hindered by the ‘smoky old town’ of the era. In the heyday of the Industrial Revolution, England’s towns and cities were often blanketed in smog and atmospheric pollution from thousands of factories, mills, and domestic chimneys.
In a letter to his wife Alice in 1901, he wrote of England, “there is no country more extraordinary for a painter. London is more interesting that it is harder to paint… the fog assumes all sorts of colours; there are black, brown, yellow, green, purple fogs and the interest in painting is to get the objects seen through all these fogs.”
Karen Serres, Senior Curator of Paintings at The Courtauld, told ARTnews: “Monet’s paintings of London’s river Thames constituted by far the largest and most ambitious series Monet had produced up until this point in his career and are undoubtedly among the most significant representations of city ever made.”
She added: “They embody the complexity of his practice, pushing his Impressionist approach to the extreme in his attempts to capture the atmospheric conditions and light effects of the fog over the water. The series was largely created over three repeat visits to London between 1899-1901.”
“Monet had a love of England and a desire to be recognised across the Channel. This is the first time that an exhibition will explicitly recreate the display of one of his series with the aim of getting to the heart of his artistic enterprise.”
The exhibition will include 19 of the 37 Thames paintings Monet is known to have produced during these visits to London. Some of them, including Le Parlement, soleil couchant (Houses of Parliament, Sunset), are part of private collections so this is a unique opportunity. This particular painting sold at auction at Christie’s in 2022 for $76 million.
The exact reasons why the 1905 London exhibition of the paintings was cancelled are unclear, but it is known that Monet was an extreme perfectionist. In fact, he was known to slash the canvases of paintings he disliked, even if they had been critically acclaimed and his art dealer was convinced they would sell.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the temperamental artist wrote in a 1912 letter, reprinted in Richard Kendall’s Monet by Himself: “I’ve enough good sense in me to know whether what I’m doing is good or bad, and it’s utterly bad.”
In another letter to his art dealer a few weeks later he added: “I know well enough in advance that you’ll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited, they’ll be a great success, but I couldn’t be more indifferent to it since I know they are bad, I’m certain of it.”
The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition: Monet and London: Views of the Thames will run from September 27 2024 to January 19 2025.
If you have a favourite scene of London or another atmospheric English cityscape you would like to display, please drop into our framing shop and we will be happy to help you.